Fantasy vs. Reality

[J.Twendrist]

Yeah but Iraq has always been considered a 2nd, if not third world country? Why on earth would they have been able to fool us if we looked even a little into it?

[J.Twendrist]

We have the techknowledgy and the people who know how to use it. Besides that we have great ammounts of money to fund the inteligence. There should have been no reason he could fool us.

[Ex-D&Der]

Melinda' date=' Iraq was invaded for refusing to let inspectors in til they could hide the weapons/smuggle them away.[/quote']

This is what I was responding to, which implies that he had weapons. I was not saying no one thought he had any abc weapons. Some did (really just chemical and perhaps biological weapons. No one thought he had nuclear weapons). I'm saying he didn't actually have them.

The documents you cite are interesting, but the first only says that the U.S. had proof of cooperation with Al Qaeda (which it didn't), not that there was such cooperation. It's promising, but it's not proof. (It could be interpreted to mean, "the U.S. caught us," but by itself it's not clear if it really means, "the U.S. thinks it caught us and is going to hit us.") The source is also in question, as pointed out in the editorial note. The last is alerting Saddam about reports that Al Qaeda entered Iraq, not evidence of cooperation.

In terms of hiding documents, that's a very different thing from hiding weapons. The logic before the invasion was that if he was hiding things, he must be hiding weapons. That logic turned out to be mistaken, and shouldn't be resurrected. To claim there were weapons in Iraq, there has to be proof of weapons in Iraq. A plausible inference doesn't do the job. Same goes for cooperation with Al Qaeda.

[Chayesh]

There were weapons hidden in Iraq. Of course, to date, no one has found any WMD's. There are documented reports of all sorts of things buried in the sand surrounding the cities that have been found. Will they find any WMD's? Who knows. But it is certainly just as plausible that they will as they won't. Because Hussein's foreign policy was based on a facade of deceit, who's to know which documents of the Iraqi government are true and which aren't. I suspect we'll never know.

[Ex-D&Der]

There were weapons hidden in Iraq. Of course' date=' to date, no one has found any WMD's. There are documented reports of all sorts of things buried in the sand surrounding the cities that have been found. Will they find any WMD's? Who knows. But it is certainly just as plausible that they will as they won't. Because Hussein's foreign policy was based on a facade of deceit, who's to know which documents of the Iraqi government are true and which aren't. I suspect we'll never know.[/quote']

There's no proof. Saying it's plausible isn't proof. Lots of things are plausible. Just because they're plausible doesn't mean you should believe them.

Moreover, the Duelfer report concluded that the evidence indicated that he destroyed all the weapons. It's not a tossup whether he had them or not. The evidence points the other way.

Also, Bush himself has conceded there were no abc weapons before the invasion.

[crackwilly21]

Bush owns.

[Chayesh]

There's no proof. Saying it's plausible isn't proof. Lots of things are plausible. Just because they're plausible doesn't mean you should believe them.

Moreover, the Duelfer report concluded that the evidence indicated that he destroyed all the weapons. It's not a tossup whether he had them or not. The evidence points the other way.

Also, Bush himself has conceded there were no abc weapons before the invasion.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/sandplanes.asp

[Grumpy]

I feel a little awkward commenting on this thread since I'm not American nor do I know the details as well as most here. But I do not believe any war is worth 30000 lives, not to mention the countless more iraqs who are devestated by the death of loved ones. Was there really no other way?

[Ex-D&Der]

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/sandplanes.asp

Interesting, but not proof of WMD before the war.

[Nekky]

On an aside, I really think people should refrain from calling Middle Eastern nations "backwards countries". It's very condecending to call a country backwards because they don't have skyscrapers and World of Warcraft Online. They're just different from upper/middle-class Western nations.

If one opens a history book, you can see that some of these 'backward' nations were developing some of the earliest advances in the fields of law, mathematics, engineering, science and religion when the 'civilised' West were wearing animal hides and throwing rocks at each other.

[Chayesh]

Interesting' date=' but not proof of WMD before the war.[/quote']

Which is exactly what I said. I was simply making the point that we cannot really know which documents are accurate based on the Hussein regime's proliferate lies. Did they have them and make false documents saying they destroyed them? Did they destroy them recently and just say they did it years ago? Did they really not have them and did a great PR job? Are they buried in the desert? I'm just saying we can't really know.

As to the point of things highlighted in the Duelfer report, as Behrens said, hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20. With the access to supposedly true documents that we have now, anyone could armchair quarterback and say "we should have known". But the fact is, we didn't have this access to information that we have now. WE (meaning a collective WE as in Israel, Russia, Great Britain, the US, etc.) couldn't have known that all the reports that were pointing to those weapons' existence were just smoke and mirrors, and in reality, could not take that chance. If you put yourself in the position objectively, think about what they were looking at when the decision was made. Hussein says he has them. His surrounding neighbors said he had them. More than 3 sources of high level, highly funded, high quality intelligence from more than one nation says he has them. History has shown that he's had them in the past and not been shy about using them even on his own people. I'm of the opinion how could they have NOT come to the the conclusion that they did.

[Ex-D&Der]

At the moment I'm trying to separate the factual issue of whether there WMDs in Iraq before the war from the policy issue of whether the invasion was the right decision. Hindsight is clearer, and one thing that is clear at this point is that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion. It's possible to speculate about a scenario in which the documents indicating Saddam destroyed the weapons are fake, to imagine that weapons existed, and to suppose that they were moved outside the country before the invasion, but there's no proof of any of these speculations. What the evidence points to on the contrary is that he destroyed his chemical weapons in the 1990s and halted his biological and nuclear weapons programs. That is the finding the Duelfer report, and what the administration now concedes is the truth.

[Chayesh]

Yes. The key word being NOW. Then, we had no such evidence. 100% of the evidence was to the contrary: That Hussein did in fact have such an arsenal and historically was more than willing to utilize it.

[Sinavestos]

Yes. The key word being NOW. Then' date=' we had no such evidence. 100% of the evidence was to the contrary: That Hussein did in fact have such an arsenal and historically was more than willing to utilize it.[/quote']

I think Chayesh nailed it on the head ... though in my opinion, hindsight can teach us valuable lessons. For one, I hope the powers that be in the oval office have learned to take the intelligence they're given with a hefty grain of salt. That being said, in my opinion, the Democratic party's obsession with finger-pointing seems to me to be extremely counter-productive. Yes, errors in intelligence and decision-making have put us in a situation that is, shall we say, a bit of a clusterf***. But we still have freaking troops out fighting and dying, trying to keep Iraqi citizens from getting killed. It seems to me that what everyone should be talking about is the best possible course of action our country can take now, considering that we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to fix what we break. A unilateral pullout of our troops, which is being suggested by a number of people in congress, seems to me to basically equate to borrowing your friend's car, getting drunk, smashing it into a tree, and telling him (or her) sorry, I don't have insurance ... hope you got some money saved up. Since this discussion has turned so very political, I'm curious as to what people think should be done *now*. What game plans are possible, what do people think is viable as far as fixing the s***storm that is Iraq at the moment. Granted none of us have any say in what happens, but I think at least a few comments on the subject might be illuminating.

Oh, and if there's anyone that missed the news today ... Bush is apparently saying that the decision to pull troops out of Iraq will fall to (get this) "future presidents." That's right ... 2008 at the earliest. Personally, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I read this. In the past few decades (after WWII), the United States has had a habit of charging into situations and then having popular opinion sway towards bailing out ... and then doing so, leaving whatever people we were trying to help out in the first place twisting in the wind. I'm glad to hear that for once, we're sticking it out and trying to stay and finish what we've started ... though I know that popular opinion (according to the polls) doesn't share this sentiment, I for one think it is a step towards America redeeming itself.

[The Lemming]

What can be done now...let me think, first we are fighting people that use underhanded tactics, we will have to win by finding a way around them. I think this can be done using a psychological approach. We have to consider that we are fighting a bunch of religious fanatics and we can use that to our advantage. I have heard rumor, and again this is just rumor, that coming in contact with pigs blood makes their soul impure or something like that. How hard would it be to publicize that we will begin using bullets treated with pigs blood, so that getting hit leaves no chance of redemption, just strait to hell or what ever they believe in. I don’t believe a word of that religion, will pigs blood send them to hell? No. They just think it will and that is what we can exploit to win. How long will religious fanatics fight knowing that simply fighting us will make them impure? How many more people will they be able to recruit? Even if this is not a true fact, we can get some religious experts to analyze the religion and find a similar tactic.

Second I personally think we are being too soft on them, our military has amazing potential, and we are holding ourselves back. I have many friends in the military and I get frequent letters about things that I find to be complete bull. Things like not being able to return fire because someone is standing behind a non-combatant firing at your squad, having to wait on an attack because a sniper is sitting in the family room of an apartment building, things like that. I realize that there are rules, but when the rules hinder us and cost American lives, something has to give. Furthermore it is obvious that the rules are being taken advantage of on their part and we need to put an end to that too.

Third pulling out is not an option, Sadam has been captured and the unrest right now is going to put someone even worse into power. IF Iraq had no involvement with al quida(sp??) before, how long do you think it would be before they or some other extremist group moved in and took over, a month? a year? The Iraqi people are incapable of defending themselves at this point. We need to make a standing army out of Iraqi's and that cannot be done over there. They training camps get bombed on a regular basis. We should bring them back here, train them where they can train unhindered and send them back to kick some a**. Yes we will probably get some terrorists that will come over and train and there are ways around that too. Before putting anyone, to include the flight staff, one the plane, give them some sodium penathol, ask a few key questions, and let them on there merry way. If they don’t let you give them the injection, they don’t go near the plane, and we may even capture a few terrorists in the process. If an American wont take the injection, we get a new pilot who will and they catch a different flight.

I have many more thoughts and most of what I have said is just a nutshell of what I can but I am getting tired of typing so this is it for now.